Sip Wine Bar

          Sip Wine bar is a new restaurant that just opened in Boston’s theater district. The menu is a mix of small and large plates including sushi, and the extensive wine list (offered by the bottle, glass, or sip) is meant to pair with the food. Sip graciously hosted a blogger meet up last week, where we sampled several items from the small plates menu, the entire dessert menu, and four different types of wine. Everything completely exceeded my expectations, including the service. Our server was fantastic; he was knowledgeable, personable, made several great recommendations, and selected the win pairings for our desserts, which were spot on. The general manager and the chef also stopped by our table a couple of times to welcome us and make sure everything was going well.

          We started with a few items from the small plates menu including the ahi tuna, day boat scallops, skillet roasted mussels, arancini, fried olives, and tempura green beans.

          The tuna was diced raw with ginger, sesame, and chili oil and served on top of a sushi rice cake. I always love tuna tartare, and this was no exception!

          The scallops were blackened on the outside, but a perfect medium to medium rare on the inside and served with slightly spicy horseradish marmalade.

 

         The roasted mussels were served in a sizzling skillet with Italian seasonings and grilled ciabatta bread.

         The arancini were fried crisp on the outside and filled with gooey mozzarella cheese and truffle oil, and served with a marinara sauce.

          The olives were stuffed with sweet Italian sausage, and fried in a panko and red pepper breading. It was the perfect combination of spicy and salty.

I even enjoyed the tempura green beans with soy and BBQ sauces, and I don’t even like green beans!

          After the small plates, we tried some of the sushi based on the manager’s recommendation. We all agreed we probably wouldn’t have thought to order sushi, just because it wasn’t primarily a sushi restaurant but the two dishes we tried (the firecracker yellowtail and sip scallop roll) were definitely group favorites!

          The sip scallop roll was one of the most unusual rolls I’ve tried. It had tempura scallops on the inside, and the whole thing was wrapped in torched salmon belly rather than seaweed.

         The yellowtail was served with daikon radish and a spicy ponzu sauce. The presentation was absolutely stunning and this was my favorite dish of the night.

          We were completely stuffed and considering sharing one dessert, when our server suggested we order them all. We really didn’t need much convincing, and after tasting all of them we were glad we did!

          The apple crisp was my favorite, which was served warm with vanilla ice cream and caramel on top.

         The s’mores were also delicious and a creative presentation (they weren’t your traditional campfire s’mores). The marshmallows were already toasted and came out on skewers, and they were served with a trio of chocolate sauce, raspberry sauce, and crumbled graham crackers for dipping.

         The chocolate truffles were rich and decadent, and included two dark, a milk chocolate, and a white. These were served with chocolate, pistachios, and raspberry sauce for dipping. My favorite was the white chocolate, which had a hint of orange.

          I also enjoyed the chocolate cake, key lime, and lemon meringue pie, but I was so full at this point I only tasted a small bite of each.

          I loved everything I tried at Sip, and would definitely go back (hopefully in the near future). I’m excited to try more of the sushi offerings, especially since the menu may be expanding in the near future.